Gamelan LLC

Creative Solutions for Business and Marketing

  • Who We Are
  • What We Do
    • Marketing Strategy
    • Branding
    • Website Design
    • Social Media
      • Twitter Marketing Strategy
    • Blogging
    • Search Marketing
      • SEO
  • Contact
  • Gamma Notes
    • Small Business Tips
    • Digital Marketing
      • Social Media Strategy
      • SEO Tips
    • Branding Strategy
    • Entrepreneurship

Knowing Your Audience: Do You Have A Customer Profile?

December 10, 2015 By Matthew White

“No phone calls?” I asked, surprised.

“Maybe two a day,” my friend responded.

“But you’ve got trucks all over town, driving around with the phone number plastered on them.”

“People don’t want to talk with a human being – they want to type everything.” She added, jokingly, “Don’t you know that?”

Phone (shown) or email - a customer profile decision
Yes, that’s a phone. And, this phone could still be one of your best sales tools. Or not. How do you find out?

I agreed half-heartedly. I certainly would rather type than talk for most tasks and problem solving – ordering a book, researching a new car, arranging grocery delivery, solving a tech support issue . . .

But, what surprised me most is that her business is a more traditional residential and commercial services business. And, it’s a successful one still growing at a healthy rate.

There are some assumptions I’d like to see tested (more about that later), but I was surprised that either:

a) The phone plays such a small role in lead generation, or

b) The online component is responsible for so much more.

Different Strokes, Different Folks

There are of course statistics to support the idea that people are emailing more than they are talking on their smartphones. No surprise there perhaps. However, it stands to reason that certain markets and market sectors would be more phone-friendly than email-friendly (and vice versa).

Without a doubt, different businesses and niches have their unique requirements. The nature of the business, the market’s demographics, and other factors all play a role. These unique requirements – and nuances let’s call them – impact the messaging, marketing tactics, and strategies that end up being successfully employed. Very simply put, this is called knowing your audience.

Knowing Your Audience

no customer profile, empty picture frame
Without building a customer profile, you’ve got an empty picture frame.

If you’ve fielded sales calls, responded to questions, or spent any time in customer service, you’ve developed a sketch of who your customer is. And, subconsciously you can make a lot of decisions based on your picture of who that person is: They do or do not like a follow up email, for example. Or, they tend to respond to certain phrases and avoid others. Their eyes light up when you ask certain questions.

This is a customer profile. And, we’ve all developed them – some with more research and analysis, some with more nitty-gritty hands-on experience.

Why The Customer Profile Is So Valuable

The problem is that many businesses do not make as many decisions as they should based on this profile. Individually, they may know the profile. As an entity, it’s often the policy, bureaucracy, and warring agendas that cloud the business’ decision making.

However, lots of answers to common problems can be discovered simply by bouncing it off of your customer profile. Here are just a few of the things a customer profile can help you determine:

  1. What kind of blog articles, social media posts, and social media channels deliver information they actually care about.
  2. How they want to pay, when they want to pay, and how much they want to pay.
  3. Methods for follow up – such as email, phone, or text – and the timing of that follow up.
  4. Is a referral program a good idea? If so, how should it be structured?
  5. How big an issue is reputation management and what channels should we be monitoring?

Building A Customer Profile

There are a number of ways to go about building a customer profile, and as you can gather from the above, you probably already have a start. An outside perspective is very helpful however because you can avoid some of the biases that confuse the process. In addition, there is a great deal of analysis and some metrics that should play a role.

We can help. Reach out for marketing and sales help for your business.

Also, be sure to check out a related article on engaging your audience’s needs.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

Filed Under: Small Business Tips Tagged With: email marketing, marketing, marketing online, offline marketing, small business

Comments

  1. Sunday says

    December 15, 2015 at 4:37 am

    Hi Mathew,
    A customer profile should help you determine the direction of your business. Hence, it becomes important to develop this profile effectively.

    Its a good thing we can at least understand who we are dealing with, what he/she wants and where to find them.

    Also, understanding the audience means building strength for reputation management!
    I left the above comment in kingged.com as well

    • Matthew White says

      December 16, 2015 at 5:09 pm

      Yes indeed. In fact, I was just dealing with a case this morning that tied customer profile to overall direction of the business. Things became a lot clearer when viewed through that lens. Thanks for stopping by!

Trackbacks

  1. Know Your Audience, Then Act Accordingly | Gamma Notes Marketing Blog says:
    February 1, 2016 at 2:50 am

    […] of the insights in the recent Gamma Notes post on using customer profiles and knowing your audience might seem obvious. But, you’d be surprised how often things like internal protocol or our […]

Gamma Notes: A Small Business and Startup Marketing Blog

Creativity and the nitty-gritty details don't have to be mutually exclusive. Gamma Notes is a small business and startup marketing blog designed to share tested marketing ideas and tips to businesses and nonprofits alike.

About Matthew White

Matthew White enjoys thinking about business problems differently. And he's actually had 20+ years of active, hands-on startup and marketing experience.

  • RSS
  • Twitter

Posts From the Gamma Notes Blog:

  • Behind The Mask: Post-Covid Marketing Strategy
  • What Is a Branding Guide & Why Do You Need It?
  • The Pros and Cons of In House Marketing

Reach Out Now

We want to hear about your specific marketing needs or business pains.

It costs nothing to discuss and share ideas.

Reach Out

Reach out by email or phone us at 404-890-8196.

Copyright © 2013–2023 Gamelan, LLC. All rights reserved.

XML Sitemap Index